Coetzee's Jesus trilogy is strange but compelling

I have just finished J.M. Coetzee's Jesus trilogy, The Childhood of Jesus, The Schooldays of Jesus and The Death of Jesus. And a very strange beast it is, too.

It is a late-period work (The Death of Jesus was published in 2019, and his first novel, Dusklands, came out in 1974, some 45 years earlier), so one could perhaps expect a more philosophical approach, and maybe a more experimental one. And that's exactly what Coetzee gives us. Not content to rest on his laurels - he has the Nobel Prize in Literature and not one, but two, Booker Prizes under his belt, along with a slew of other prizes and comendations - he pushes the envelope a bit further with these spare and slightly off-kilter books.

Coetzee's writing style was always disarmingly simple, elegant but economical. That is to say, he doesn't waste words on unnecessary ornamentation and flights of fancy. The Jesus novels continue this tendency. His prose has been called "stripped-down", "disorienting" and "hypnotic", and that's as good a description as any.

It should perhaps be mentioned that the novels are not about Jesus, and there is no character in them called Jesus. The main characters are a boy known as Davíd (not his real name) and his "parents" Simón and Inés. In fact, Simón found Davíd on a refugee boat and took him under his wing, including finding him a "mother". 

There is some element of analogy, though, as people gravitate toward David, despite his outward aloofness and weirdness, and especially as the overblown mythos around him grows after his death, and reports of miracles, a mysterious "message", and more, circulate.

The three settle in an unnamed Spanish-speaking country, and try to make a life for themselves, even as their relationships gradually fall apart. Davíd - the "Jesus" of the book titles, if anyone is, although it is by no means a straightforward allegory - is fiercely bright but uncompromisingly self-centred, aggressively independent and unpleasant. Inés is sharp and equally uncompromising in her own way, and definitely not natural mother material. Simón is perhaps the only sympathetic character: cerebral, self-deprecating, eminently sensible, devoted and loving, but keenly aware of how far out of his depth he is in undertaking to bring up a child, especially a child like Davíd.

And out of this, Coetzee builds three linked novels. They do have plots, but most of the writing revolves around relationships, emotions, spirituality and ideas. How to live a good life, how to bring up a child in a changing world, how to navigate life in a new country and a new culture, the wisdom of the law, passion vs. reason, that kind of thing. Each book is that rare thing, a page-turner of a philosophical novel. Together, they have confirmed Coetzee as one of our greatest writers.